Lothian Buses you say? Not in 1919 – the maroon and white buses we use on a daily basis here in Edinburgh were non-existent.

Following the Great War, The Edinburgh Corporation Transport launched in the capital.

The Edinburgh Street Tramways were the originally the basis of the company all the way back in 1871, when you could catch a horse-drawn tram line from Haymarket to Bernard Street in Leith, which was yet to officially become a part of Edinburgh.

The first post war regular bus service in Edinburgh started on the 29th of December 1919, long before Princes Street was a Hogmanay hub at that time of year.

Early public transport in the capital (Image: Wikipedia)

The bus ran via Holyrood Palace, the Royal Mile and the Castle before being extended to Easter Road the following March.

You can forget a day ticket as well – the fares for the service were calculated on distance, charged by the penny, 1d, 2d etc. depending how far you were going.

In 1920 there was a growing demand for special football services, requiring as many as 30 extra buses to support sports-goers, and for late night partiers the Corporation launched a late-night service to the Marine Gardens ballroom – with the entrance fee included in your bus ticket!

Real horsepower in the older models (Image: Wikipedia)

There’s not much chance of your bus ticket getting you into a club these days.

The buses also became Edinburgh’s way of transporting post – working with a network of collection and delivery boys who’d drop off the parcels along the routes.

The demand continued to grow for more and more services as well as at a higher frequency which quickly revealed the buses’ issues.

Cobbled streets made the buses vibrate and they could only fit a small number of passengers.

The solid rubber tires wore away at the roads in Holyrood Park and the Corporation were faced with a healthy fine.

It wasn’t just the roads struggling – residents complained about the vibration so much that bus speeds were limited to 8mph and could only descend in gear when going downhill.

By the middle of 1920 the Corporation were using Leyland buses (30 buses only cost £25,000 back then). Of these buses there was an ‘Edinburgh Type’ single decker bus with a rear door and a separate smoking compartment at the back.

The driver got his own compartment on these buses – in order to give drivers of the fleet protection against Edinburgh’s unpredictable and harshweather.

By 1925, the Edinburgh type had further evolved to feature two doors – quite the revelation.

A driver and conductor were required to operate the service but on lesser used routes you could make more money as a driver – the rear door would be shut off and the driver would collect the fares himself.

It’s a far cry from the services we use now in Edinburgh - day tickets, m-ticket apps and USB ports to charge your phone.

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